


Second-hand Success

by Acts_of_Tekla



Category: GLOW (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Ficlet, Gen, Gen or Pre-Femslash, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 10:35:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13832358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acts_of_Tekla/pseuds/Acts_of_Tekla
Summary: Debbie is the first person in Hollywood to notice Ruth. At first, neither can quite believe it.





	Second-hand Success

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be for [Femslash February](http://archiveofourown.org/tags/Femslash%20February/works), but wound up a bit too gen for me to feel comfortable tagging it as such.
> 
> Thanks to [Vita_Sine_Fantasy_Mors_Est](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Vita_sine_fantasy_mors_est/pseuds/Vita_sine_fantasy_mors_est) for reassuring me it didn't suck!

Debbie is the first person in Hollywood to notice Ruth, and at first, she can’t quite believe it.

Every woman in the world has spent their lives being compared to women like Debbie and found wanting. But Debbie is somehow at the same cattle call audition as Ruth, and instead of ignoring her, she jabs her in the side and cracks a joke about the casting assistant’s hair.

Ruth _knows_ that she’s talented, and she has training and experience to boot. She sings, she dances, she cries on cue, but she is small and brunette and, well, cute. She gets really familiar with not seeing her name on the callback list. But it’s—well, not okay, exactly, but better than it would have been, because Debbie gets roles and Debbie is Ruth’s best friend and Debbie is beautiful and talented and Debbie honestly deserves them. It’s not as if they would have otherwise gone to Ruth.

She thinks it would be smarter to quit, and the thought is small but it sits in the pit of her stomach and refuses to either take over like a cancer or pass like a kidney stone. It’s been so long that it’ll be a miracle if she can pay her parents back for all the money they’ve loaned her by the time they retire. Even Debbie, far more successful than Ruth even though her resume has nothing more impressive than a supporting role on a second rate soap opera, has retired to the suburbs.

Maybe success really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but Ruth still wants to find out first hand. In her weaker moments she’ll settle for second, or even, in her weakest, third. But she won’t give up. She can’t.

 

Debbie is the first person in Hollywood to notice Ruth, and at first, she can’t quite believe it.

Ruth is smart and talented and creative and really fucking funny, and whenever she is given half a chance she _shines._ Debbie watches her audition for professional film, television, and theatre, but only sees her perform in student films, local access television, and community theatre. Debbie is tall and blonde and has huge breasts that she’s never been comfortable with, and Debbie gets role after role until she gets Paradise Cove and she thinks it’s a real beginning, but instead it’s only the beginning of the end.

Debbie changes a few too many lines, resists a few too many director’s orders, and for the big season finale, Laura is in a tragic car accident and spends all of season two in a coma. If this were what success really looked like, if all she could possibly look forward to was wading through this swamp of shit, then screw it, she’d listen to Mark and give rich suburban motherhood a try.

Ruth says that she understands, but Debbie can tell that she doesn’t. Ruth is as focused on work as she always has been, maybe even more so since Debbie got married and moved to Pasadena and had a baby. They used to just hang out whenever; now they’re just lucky that aerobics class is predetermined habit or they’d never see each other.

Except—that isn’t really true, because while Debbie doesn’t want to take advantage of her mother, it isn’t as if she couldn’t afford a babysitter or just bring Randy along. When Debbie is alone with Randy the house seems to shrink in on her, but when she’s out with Ruth—who refuses to give up, but who can’t possibly be less miserable than Debbie—it’s somehow worse.


End file.
